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The conference is now being recorded. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Covestro earnings call on the first quarter and full year 2021 results. The company is represented by Markus Steilemann, CEO, Thomas Toepfer, CFO, and Ronald Köhler, Investor Relations. During the presentation, all participants will be in a listen-only mode. The presentation will be followed by a question and answer session. [Operator Instructions]
I would now like to turn the conference over to Ronald Köhler. Please go ahead, sir.
Yeah. Good afternoon to all European participations and good morning to all Americans. I'm happy that you're joining our full-year 2021 conference call, and I know it's a busy day and it might be one of the several conference calls you have, therefore, I'm even more happy that you're here. We have posted the Annual Report and the earnings call presentation at our IR website, and if you haven't seen it, you can always download it. And there you will also find our Safe Harbor statement and I assume you have read it. And with that, I'll turn it over to Markus.
Thanks a lot, Ron and very good afternoon and/or good morning to everybody on the call.
In the full-year 2021, our earnings performance was well above previous year levels, as the 2020 results, as you're well aware, were heavily impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. The demand rebound resulted in a 10% core volume growth in last year, and earnings remained on high levels throughout the entire year 2021. We delivered €3.1 billion EBITDA and a free operating cash flow of €1.4 billion, and I think that qualifies 2021 as a strong financial year for Covestro.
We want our shareholders to participate in our financial success and therefore yesterday we announced a new share buyback program of €500 million over the next two years. We also continue our ambition to pay out an attractive dividend and propose a dividend of €3.40 per share.
How do our 2021 results compare to our past promises? Let's turn to the next page.
We achieved all our financial targets set for the year 2021. As I said, core volume growth of 10% included the volumes from the acquired RFM business and came in at the lower end of the guided range. We also saw strong demand and also limited product availability accompanied us in our customers throughout – and our customers throughout the year. Free operating cash flow of exactly €1.429 billion came in at the lower end of the latest guided range, yet above the upper end of the initial range.
While earnings and cash flow outlook improved in due course of the year, cash was increasingly absorbed by working capital, reflecting the outstanding price inflation, especially during the second half. We generated €3.85 billion of EBITDA and 19.5% return on capital employed, well above our initial guidance and close to the center of the latest guidance corridors.
While delivering on target on the financial side, I'm excited to announce today new targets on the non-financial climate-related side. Covestro has a tradition and a track record of pioneering sustainability in the polymer industry. I'm convinced, shareholders of Covestro will also in future benefit from both leadership in sustainability and profitable growth. Let's take a look at our new targets in more detail.
Covestro aims for climate neutrality and has set for itself a bold and ambitious target. Net zero for Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 2035. This target is another major milestone toward our corporate vision of becoming fully circular. As a key milestone, we plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions from our own production, referred to as Scope 1, and from external energy sources referred to as Scope 2, by 60% by 2030. A key aspect for our 2035 reduction target is meeting the goal of the Paris Climate Agreement, under which the world community aims to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
Sustainability, and more specifically, climate-related targets are not new to Covestro. As a matter of fact, in 2021 we achieved our previous specific greenhouse gas emission reduction target for 2025 ahead of time. We more than halved specific emissions, again, Scope 1 and Scope 2 compared to the base year 2005, while production volume doubled. As a consequence, Covestro achieved climate-neutral growth since 2005.
Reducing our own emissions, however, will not be the end. We plan to further reduce indirect greenhouse gas emissions from upstream and downstream processes in the value chain referred to as [indiscernible] (00:06:06). This part of the transformation will be largely linked to our transition to a circular economy.
More importantly, we strongly believe that transition opportunities will outweigh transition costs. We aim to shift all our production processes and products completely to circular principles in the long-term and we intend to support meeting our and customers' climate objectives at the same time. Covestro is continuously expanding its portfolio of climate-neutral products as customers already today demand sustainable products and, we believe, are also willing to pay for the added value. This is vital to align our transition to net zero emissions with profitable growth prospects.
To achieve net zero emissions, Covestro anticipates dedicated investments of accumulated €250 million to €600 million by 2030. These investments will tackle our direct greenhouse gas emissions, but also increase our overall energy efficiency. This is expected to result in low operating expenses of between €50 million and €100 million annually during the same time.
We currently also expect an increase in operating expenses in the magnitude of a low three-digit million euro amount annually. These cost assumptions, based on historic circumstance that prices for fossil-derived energies are lower than prices for renewable energies. The upside here is that this historic price order is being turned around, as it can be observed in many places today.
If we now turn to the next page, we have identified three main levers that make a vital contribution to achieving our climate targets: more sustainable manufacturing, renewable electricity, and renewable steam. The waterfall graph on the chart shows our detailed path and expected contribution of each of the measures to reach our interim target of 60%, emission reductions in 2030 and a 100% reduction in 2035. It is needless to say that business growth without any climate-related measures leads to higher emissions, in our case, plus 1 million metric tons until 2030.
Thereafter, we expect no negative impact on emissions from business growth as future growth investments are required to support climate neutral growth from 2030 onwards. Also, there are external factors that influence our Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions. These factors comprise the energy mix of [indiscernible] (00:08:58), for example, the announced nuclear exit in Germany and Belgium, as well as public energy allocation schemes, for example, determined by the German renewable energy's law, short, EEG. The net effect of all changes as known today amounts to minus 0.7 million metric tons.
To look at the identified lighthouse projects from the area of manufacturing excellence and renewable energy, let's turn to the next page, number 7. We have identified numerous measures to effectively reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. In the area of more sustainable manufacturing, production processes will be further improved and energy-efficiency enhanced. One focus is to reduce nitrous oxide emissions by installing highly efficient catalysts. Secondly, in the area of renewable electricity, our production sites worldwide will be gradually converted from fossil based to renewable electricity.
We have already entered a number of power purchase agreements for renewable energy and further agreements are being planned.
Thirdly, steam. This is an important energy source for chemical production processes. Converting steam generation from fossil to renewable energy sources is a challenge that Covestro intends to solve by various routes. Those routes are ranging from electrifying steam generation based on renewable energies to using bio gas or green hydrogen as an energy source for steam generation. In a nutshell, we are very excited to have set ourselves this bold emission targets and have worked relentlessly out our roadmap towards climate neutrality.
Covestro continues as a pioneer towards a circular economy and to successfully deliver both leadership in sustainability and profitable growth.
With this, I would like to hand over to Thomas for the financial review.
Yes, thank you, Markus and also a very warm welcome from my side to our call.
So, if you go to page 8 of the presentation, you can see our core volume growth of 10% in the financial year 2021 and that reflects the volume rebound and the consolidation of RFM. Just to remind you, RFM contributed 6 percentage points, but I would also like to remind you that at the same time, we were constrained by product availability, and you can see the volume development by our key industries in the box on the right hand side in the order of kilotons sold.
So, first of all, wood and furniture came in at minus 4%. We saw solid demand, however, we were constrained in terms of TDI and polyol availability. Construction, we came – came in at plus 1% against solid demand, however, constrained and MVI and P – polycarbonate availability. And number three, the auto and transportation industry, plus 10%, so, very strong year-on-year growth globally and I would like to remind you that the global auto industry grew by only 2% year-on-year. So we outgrew the industry by 8 percentage points. And that, for me, is another indication that we are delivering in the high growth part of that industry, specifically electric vehicles.
Last but not least, electro came in at plus 9% with growth in all regions. And I would like to remind you that all industries are excluding RFM and the RFM business is fully consolidated in diverse and this is why you find the plus 33% in the box on the right-hand side of the page.
So with that, let's turn to page 9 of the presentation, where you have the sales bridge. You can see full-year sales increased by 48.5% pushed by 35% higher prices, that is the €3.7 billion that you see in the bridge. And it's just another proof point that Covestro successfully passed through the unprecedented inflation of raw material prices to our customers.
The net volume effect in sales and that excludes RFM was 6.5% year-on-year, mainly driven by solutions and specialties, as this segment compared itself to a relatively weak prior year. And the volume growth, especially in Performance Materials was limited by constrained product availability as I mentioned earlier. FX is only a small negative number with minus 0.8%, mainly driven by the weak US dollar. And I would like to draw your attention to the portfolio bucket, which is the €863 million that isn't essentially the entire sales of RFM, which have been consolidated as of April 1. And that's an 8.1% and 8.1% effect for the full year, if you put it to the Covestro numbers.
So with that, let us turn to the EBITDA bridge on page 10. You can see that the full-year EBITDA doubled compared to prior year, driven by the highly positive pricing delta. And that is the 1.866 billion, and the vast majority of that was contributed by all key product groups within Performance Materials. However, also the volume effect in EBITDA contributed positively with an attractive volume leverage of 49% and FX was virtually neutral on a year-on-year basis.
So I would just like to comment on the other items bucket, which includes essentially three main effects. First of all, there is a negative €443 million in there, and that is the impact from the higher bonus provisions for variable compensation. Secondly, there's a negative €60 million one-time effect, which is related to the acquired RFM business, and that compares to a negative €33 million in 2020. And number three, there's a negative €39 million one-time effect included in that bucket, which is related to the LEAP transformation program, and we had no such effect in 2020.
So with that, let us go to page 11, which shows you the free operating cash flow, and as Markus said earlier, we generated a free operating cash flow of €1.4 billion, which is a strong number, well above previous year, and we achieved this despite the significant higher working capital. You can see in the bullet on the right-hand side that in Q4, the free operating cash flow was somewhat below previous year as the positive contributions from working capital and the higher earnings were eaten up by significantly higher income taxes paid and also higher CapEx.
And talking about working capital that ratio in terms of working capital to sales ratio stood at 18.6%, so it's just slightly above the 18.2%, which we had a year earlier. And again, that reflects higher feedstock and also product prices, which push up the euro values, especially of our inventories. You can also see in the table below the graph that we spent €764 million on CapEx, so slightly below the budget number of €800 million. That is due to two effects; one is some projects were shifted into 2022, but also some projects came in at a lower spend than we had expected, so that is a positive news in terms of CapEx. And you can also see that year-on-year we spend a much higher number on income tax paid, but that reflects our cash tax rate of 25%, absolutely within the guidance range and also below the P&L tax rate of 25.9%.
My last comment is the last item in the little table: the other effects. That, of course, reflects the higher provisions for variable compensation because the cash out for the bonus will only occur in the second quarter of 2022.
So with that, let us turn to the balance sheet on page 12. I can truly make the statement that our balance sheet remains strong. Our pension provisions decreased by €924 million. That is due partly to the higher discount rate specifically in Germany. But the other reason is that we transferred €500 million of funds in one of our pension trusts and the effect you can see it's essentially shown twice in the bridge, one time on the financial debt side and the other time on the pension provision reduction side.
In terms of the balance sheet ratios, you can see that the ratios are strong, so the ratio of total net debt to EBITDA stands at 0.8 times at the year end of 2021 versus 1.7 times the year before. And essentially, you can also see that after €1.5 billion cash outflow for RFM and the €0.5 billion euro bond repayment and also the €0.5 billion fund transfer, we still have €1.1 billion available in cash, cash equivalents and also current financial assets.
So with that, I would like to hand it back to Markus for the segment review.
Yeah. Thanks a lot, Thomas. And please allow me to begin with the full-year review of our Performance Materials segment. The segment delivered a highly positive pricing data in 2021. We were able to pass through increasingly higher feedstock as well as energy prices, and on top, expanded our margin. First and foremost, this performance was based on solid underlying demand. However, simultaneously, our growth potential was limited by a continued constrained product availability.
Looking forward into full-year 2022, we expect our sales volumes to grow strongly based on improving product availability. At the same time, we expect the segment EBITDA to significantly decrease year-on-year due to intensified competition, mainly in polycarbonates, and I will talk a bit more about polycarbonates in a short moment. Positively, we anticipate that the supply/demand balance for our product groups, MDI and TDI will further improve as announced supply additions are below expected demand growth.
Let's turn to the next page. So turning to Solutions & Specialties, we defended absolute EBITDA and managed earnings to remain virtually unchanged year-on-year despite unprecedented inflation. Positively, the segment recorded strong sales volume growth of 12% year-on-year, reflecting a rebound in demand from a pandemic-impacted prior year. The acquired RFM business, consolidated since April 2, 2021, also contributed positively.
EBITDA margin, however, was down year-on-year by nearly 5 percentage points. This is due to mainly three reasons: significantly, higher price-driven sales comparing to unchanged absolute EBITDA resulting in a mathematically lower margin; earnings significantly burdened by higher [indiscernible] (00:20:16) prices and longer-term sales contracts, yet prevented to fully pass through prices, reflecting the typical nature of a specialty business.
Looking forward into 2022, we expect sales volumes to continue strong growth versus 2021, and we also expect segment EBITDA to significantly increase year-on-year. How we anticipate to reach our segment margin target of 17% is what I will present to you on the next page. As just presented, the unsatisfactory 2021 margin of 9.9% as a reference point to target a segment EBITDA margin of 17% in 2024. In order to reach 17%, our EBITDA margin will be driven by the four key elements that are shown in light orange on the chart.
Firstly, continued execution of our lead transformation and cost containment program, as well as continued strong growth are expected to further dilute fixed costs. Secondly, we are going to further progress with the RFM integration and realize the anticipated synergies. Thirdly, we will focus on value-based pricing, especially for newly launched innovative products. Lastly, the margin target is based on mid-cycle intersection charges by Performance Materials, therefore, are anticipated to be lower than in 2021.
In 2022, as already mentioned, we expect a significant increase in EBITDA. On the following two charts, I'm going to share some further details on our targeted path of margin improvement, beginning with RFM. So let's turn to the next page.
Regarding the integration of the acquired RFM business's all planned synergies are fully confirmed and realization is ahead of plan. As a recap, at the time of acquisition, we identified a total EBITDA contribution from synergies of €120 million, or about 12% of RFM full-year sales, thereof, €80 million synergies from lower costs and €40 million from additional revenues. We could pull forward the realization of [ph] these (00:22:33) and delivered €26 million in 2021, compared to originally expected €10 million in the same year.
We achieved this above-plan realization at €6 million lower cost compared to earlier planning, and we now expect total implementation cost of €150 million, €40 million less than we originally expected. The main reason this lower-than-expected severance needs. In a nutshell, the integration of the acquired RFM business about one-and-half years after the announcement is a success and we are satisfied with the delivered results.
Let's now turn pages to polycarbonate. As a second deep dive, let me elaborate a little bit more on our polycarbonate strategy. Overall, we continue the strategic portfolio shift from standard polycarbonate to different polycarbonates. I myself accelerated this shift from 2013 onwards when I headed the former business unit polycarbonates.
The graph on the left side shows the development of the volume split, while the grey bars continuously shrink, depicting the standard polycarbonate business within our Performance Materials segment, the light pink bars continuously rise, depicting a differentiated polycarbonate business. Refining standard polycarbonate resins produced at our fully integrated large-scale [indiscernible] (00:24:00) plants within Performance Materials into differentiated grades. That is the job of the business entity engineering plastics within the Solutions & Specialties segment.
In order to allow this shift, we are continuously investing in downstream capacity referred to as polycarbonate compounding between 2020 and 2025. We will add 230,000 tonnes of additional compounding capacity. Importantly to note is this addition is neutral to the overall industry supply-demand balance yet it exclusively allows Covestro to cater even more for the attractive, differentiated customer segments of this industry. This portfolio shift is supported by the expected 7% industry demand CAGR for engineering plastics across several customer industries. A detailed list of growth drivers is shown on the right side of this chart.
With that, allow me to turn to the next page. Looking at into 2022, we export expect solid demand recovery to continue globally. This applies to the products we just talked about in more detail, but also to our entire product portfolio. The figures on this chart show full-year demand estimates for our key industries and respective important industries. The expected 2022 demand growth in global automotive and global construction shows growth estimates above the full year 2021 values. The recovery in those industries is expected to continue after the strong demand hit by the coronavirus pandemic in 2020.
The expected 2022 demand growth in global furniture and global electro in contrast show values below full year to 2021 but on continued attractive levels. Key reason is the strong demand recoveries seen in these industries already in last year. Now, I would like to hand over to Thomas.
Yes, thank you. And I'm on page 19 of the presentation where we talk about our fixed cost development. So, remember last year, we committed to keep our fixed costs unchanged until 2023 relative to the 2020 level. And it's fair to say that we qualified this target as being challenging from the beginning. Now, if you look at the chart, you can see that in financial year 2021, the cost development was in line with the expectation and our guidance. So, we saw a rebound from the 2020, which, at the time, was marked by the lockdown and short-term cost savings. And the rebound was absolutely in line with our guidance and expectation, as I said.
So, also in 2022 and 2023 we do continue to execute cost reductions of between $50 million and $100 million per year through the LEAP program, and I can tell you that all the costs that we can control are on track. However, we also see now, of course, is that there are counter effects resulting from high inflation, for example, logistics and labor cost, and also potential projects that we will decide like the MDI project. And last but not least, also the new climate-related investments that are necessary in order to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, as Marcus just elaborated on. So, as the graph indicates, with that we will have to face some counter effects in the years 2022 and 2023, but we remain fully committed to tightly manage our fixed cost.
And just one example of that, counter effect, you find on page 20, because I think just shows you this unprecedented challenge with the global energy costs more than doubling within two years. So as you can see, the global energy costs are significantly increasing in 2021, mainly driven by the European energy prices. And you can see this in the blue columns in the upper part of the chart. So global energy costs for Covestro in 2021 where €1 billion and thereof €0.6 billion were driven by electricity and €0.4 billion were driven by natural gas. And if you break that down on a region-by-region basis, I can tell you that 70% of that is in the EU, 20% is in Asia and 10% is in the United States.
So the lower part of the chart depicts, by some key countries, the specific price development for electricity and natural gas. And you can see, first of all, the significant increases, but also the regional differences. So that based on our actual breakdown, our global energy bill in 2022 is expected to be at €1.5 billion. And again, you see this in the light blue bar on the upper half of the chart.
So, if we put it all together and you go to page 21, we are expecting an EBITDA in 2022 again about the mid-cycle earnings level. The mark-to-market estimate stands at about €3.3 billion based on the January data. And that is above the upper end of our EBITDA guidance corridor. And that EBITDA guidance is €2.5 billion to €3 billion, reflecting expectations on an increase in competitive pressure during the course of 2022.
I would also like to say that the mid-cycle EBITDA level, we now see that €2.5 billion after a step up compared to 2021 which is attributable to the RFM acquisition and the mid-cycle EBITDA should increase to €2.8 billion until 2024, driven by the business growth and of course, also the realization of the RFM synergies. So, what I would also say is that based on the industry supply and demand forecast that we see for the next years, the EBITDA is expected to remain above the mid-cycle levels for the next years.
And with that, I would like to come to the concrete outlook for 2022 on page 22 and as you can see, it contains two new KPIs. So first of all, EBITDA is replacing core volume growth, and that reflects our ongoing way from volume growth towards value-driven growth. And secondly, there is an ESG KPI measuring the greenhouse gas emission measured in metric million tons for absolute CO2 equivalents in Scope 1 and Scope 2. The free operating cash flow outlook is in line with our EBITDA outlook, as I explained a minute ago, and the number stands at €1 billion to €1.5 billion.
And in terms of ROCE above WACC, the outlook is between – the outlook is that we have the WACC of 7 percentage points in 2022 after 6.6% in 2021, and we expect an over achievement so ROCE over WACC between 5 percentage points and 9 percentage points. Greenhouse gas emissions we expect between 5.6 million and 6.1 million metric tons. And the increase is mainly attributable firstly to the composition of the externally procured power, which is less favorable for us and secondly to the growth of the business. And last but not least, I would like to mention our guidance for the EBITDA in Q1. So, we're expecting between €750 million and €850 million and even with the lower end of this guidance range, we would be above the previous year level of €743 million.
So let's turn to the next page, which shows our CapEx development so unchanged and we end with the highest priority is the investment into profitable organic growth because we do think that we are delivering attractive returns based on our industry and cost leadership. So for 2022, we have expected total planned CapEx of €1 billion and that includes €0.6 billion expansion CapEx and €400 million of maintenance CapEx. And this planned year-on-year step up, especially in expansion CapEx, includes our single largest CapEx project, which is currently our aniline expansion in Antwerp in Belgium. And of course, we will continue to maintain an adequate level of maintenance CapEx to secure, safe and reliable and efficient operations.
So with that, let me come to the topic of the dividend on page 24, we're proposing €3.40 per share. That is the highest dividend in the Covestro history. We had communicated our new payout corridor between 35% and 55%. We said that in strong years, we would probably be in the lower half of the corridor and in weaker years in the upper half of the corridor. And as we consider 2021 to be a strong but not a peak year, the payout ratio of 41% is pretty much in the middle of the lower half. So that explains the context. And of course, the upcoming AGM on April 21 should then ratify the proposal that we're making.
So on the next page, you can see the details on the share buyback program, which we announced yesterday, we announced to buy back shares of €500 million over the next two years €500 million over the next two years. And we do see a share buyback as an additional option to create value for our shareholders because it optimizes the capital structure for the group and of course it increases the earnings and the dividend per share. And with this decision, I would like to reiterate and explain also, and you can see this in the right hand side in the box, our priorities in terms of capital allocation. So, what is unchanged, our number one priority is profitable growth through capital expenditures, and I was talking about the CapEx spending for next year on one of the previous pages.
Secondly, we do want to maintain an attractive dividend payout. And I think the proposal that we're making for 2021 is underlining that. However, what we currently see is that large acquisitions currently for us have a lower priority. This is also driven by the fact that we see that the multiples that are currently paid in the market make it very difficult for us to find value creating M&A activities for us, at least on the larger scale. And you know that we are very much value driven and selective here. And, therefore, as I said, the priority for large acquisitions currently is lower. And that then leads me to a share buyback because we do think that currently the investment into our own shares is a very attractive investment opportunity that we have. And just to conclude it, of course, we do remain committed to a solid investment grade rating.
And with that, I would like to hand it back to Markus.
Yeah. Thanks a lot, Thomas. And before we now entered into the Q&A session, please allow me to quickly summarize. Our EBIDTA increase in full year 2021 was driven by positive pricing data, and we were able of passing through the unprecedented raw material inflation. Secondly, we plan to – we suggest to the annual general meeting a record dividend of €3.40 per share for full year 2021, with a dividend yield of 6.3% based on year-end share price. Thomas just alluded to a share buyback program of €0.5 billion that has been launched using the opportunity to create value for our shareholders.
The full year 2022 earnings outlook is again above mid-levels based on solid sales growth and a strong start into the first quarter of 2022. And we also announced our climate neutrality in 2035 ambitions after as an important intermediate milestone a 60% reduction of greenhouse gas emissions referring to Scope 1 and Scope 2 in 2030. So all in, looking ahead means expecting profitable growth into a climate-neutral future.
Thanks a lot. And now we're looking very much forward to your questions, and I'm handing back to the operator. Thanks a lot.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we'll begin the question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Okay. And the first question for today comes from Mr. Christian Faitz, who's calling from Kepler Cheuvreux. Over to you.
Yes. Good afternoon, everybody. Good afternoon Markus, Thomas and Ronald. Two questions if I may, first one, I know your sales exposure into Russia and Ukraine is rather limited. Yet looking at some of your major customer sales exposures in these regions, I am thinking of IKEA in furniture or Henkel in adhesives. Would you see those sales into these major customers being impacted? And can you give us an idea of how impacted those would be? And then, second question, your – is it still your plan to come to a decision where to build the new MDI plant by the middle of this year? Thank you.
Yeah. Christian, great to hear from you, and let me answer the following way. For sure, we're looking into individual customers that have exposure to Russia, and for sure, we are also looking, let's say, into specific industries that have exposure into Russia. But currently it is way too early to speculate or start speculating about how that from a macro perspective and also from an overall industry perspective, would impact our own sales because there's so many influencing factors that it is really currently difficult to predict.
One thing that I would like to make sure is that we understand we have numerous assumptions from a macro perspective, but also numerous assumptions from individual industry perspectives. And so, if some of those aspects are maybe not exactly in the order of magnitude, as we currently expected today, we do see very limited to maybe even no impact on our, for example, current guidance for the year. For sure, if there would be massive influence, for example, global GDP would go massively down, maybe even half or even go [indiscernible] (00:39:17) that would have an impact, but it is way too early to say that. And that's why we're also factoring in what we currently can see, and that is also what you see reflected in the current guidance. So I hope that answers the first part of your questions.
And in that context, you also have to see that Russia is only representing 2% of global GDP. Therefore, a spillover, let's say, effect should be, at least from today's perspective, limited. I know that there's different scenarios out there, but we're closely monitoring the situation. And but today, honestly speaking, this is the position we have, and this is also what we today can say to this. On MDI, we have always been clear that we will come to a decision end of third quarter beginning of fourth quarter. So that means after the summer holiday, you will hear more about that.
Thanks, Markus. Thank you very much.
Thanks, Christian.
The next question comes from Mubasher Chaudhry, he's calling from Citi. Over to you.
Hi. Thank you for taking my questions. First one is on the guidance. Can you please talk about some of the moving parts which get you from the bottom end of the guidance at €2.5 billion to €3 billion range from [indiscernible] (00:40:42) And then second one on industry utilizations. Could you provide some thoughts on the MDI, TDI utilizations in 2021 and where do you see them going for 2022? Thank you.
Yeah, so this is Thomas. The sound quality was a little bit poor. So I'm trying to answer the first question if it's not spot on, please let me know and then I will try to repeat it.
Thank you.
So what I understood your question, what is the – what would bring us to the bottom end and the top end of the guidance? So, I think there are two major factors. One is you should, of course, know that we are assuming a growth factor for 2022. So a mid-to-high single digit number growth. That is factoring in the assumption that we will have lower unplanned shutdowns than we had in 2021 and that we will simply have a higher uptime for our own plants.
And secondly on the negative side, it is assuming essentially a negative pricing delta of $1 billion because we do see that there is, especially in Asia, new capacities for polycarbonates coming to the market, and we already are now seeing some pricing pressure on for polycarbonate in that region. So, now how exactly that will play out is, of course, the big question. But, therefore, the lower end of the guidance simply assumes that we will again have some unplanned shutdowns and, therefore, not deliver the full growth potential.
So, rather in the mid-single digit range and the other factor and every percentage point of growth is some €80 million of EBITDA, just to give you the order of magnitude. And the other, of course, is the pricing delta. We do think that $1 billion is a reasonable number and you can see that the pricing – the mark to market today stands at 3.3%, so that also shows you the order of magnitude that we've factored in. But, of course, things can move quickly. However, I would also like to be a little bit more [indiscernible] (00:42:47) we currently do see that Q1 is on a very good track and the fact that we're guiding between $750 million to $850 million, so above the previous year is maybe proof-point to that.
So, I think those are the factors, the swing factors between the lower and the upper end of the guidance for EBITDA.
Yeah. And thanks, Thomas, also here if you would like to have a bit more flavor on the individual product groups, MDI, TDI, polycarbonate, as well as our standard polyols; let's take a look at MDI first. So we actually assume that based on nameplate capacity, last year, we had an industry utilization of around 90% for the full year. And we expect given the continued demand, but also the continued, let's say, supply additions that we see that we should move above 90% in full year 2022, the maybe well-known one ramp-up last year and early 2021 expansion should be more or less already being absorbed by the market. And then, at the same time, I believe that we're currently in a situation where things can turn north and south. That means we're in a situation where we have a balanced MDI market, but I would lean currently more towards, let's say, a market that would change to be a little bit undersupplied, if there's no, let's say, major disruptions happening in one or the other direction.
On TDI margins, it's slightly a different story because nameplate capacity, we are operating at rates and full year 2021 at around 73%. That would indicate that there would have been little pricing power, but we have seen actually the opposite in the overall market. And also given that the available capacity based on planned or unplanned shutdowns is actually much lower than the nameplate capacity also expected overall structurally, the situation improves, but we also may benefit a little bit, let's say, from this current, let's say, lack of availability of some TDI plants around the world.
So long story short, if you look at the overall [ph] long-term (00:45:00) development, the announcement until 2026, the supply growth and on the other hand, demand growth in TDI, we expect that we will see a further improving industry utilization rate and especially in 2022 and 2023, the announced capacity additions would only sum up to 1% by the year – each year. So that also gives you flavor on TDI. Standard polyols and the really relevant markets for Covestro, which is Europe and North America, you could see that the – let's say industry margin levels are assumed to be extraordinarily high. That means more than twice as high as historic average. And the reason for that, let's say, margin peak was that we had several production limitations [indiscernible] (00:45:51) of larger producers, and I'm not going down the entire list now.
We're seeing a recovery of the supply in Europe and North America, and that would indicate further margin normalization during that year. That might be on the other hand, potentially cushioned by planned turnarounds in the second quarter by, for example, Dow and Shell in Europe, but also Lyondell (sic) [LyondellBasell] (00:46:11) and Dow in North America. So overall, we have seen that in China already decline – there is some margin decline happened to more normal levels and with the rest of Asia Pacific to follow. And it remains to be seen how that spillover effect will look like for Europe and US, because currently that is limited, particularly by the increased – significantly increased supply chain costs that we talked already about in a different context and reliability of the essence.
So last point, and Thomas has alluded to that already quite a bit on the polycarbonate and here I'm particularly referring to the commodity part. Yeah, in our performance materials segment, so the standard polycarbonate types, we assume that we will see a further decline of the nameplate capacity utilization from 69% last year to around 65% in the full year 2022. And we also see that there's additional capacity until 2026 coming in. So we have a supply growth of 5% to 6%, which is above average annual demand growth of 4%. That would also then indicate that it would lead to a further decline in industrialization rates.
So long story short, supply additions expected to peak this year and so on and so forth. Long-term supply growth is expected to further decline. Nonetheless, we are in a, let's say, rather challenging situation with regard to standard polycarbonates. However, and I think we have made that very clear, we are moving away from the commodity and standard polycarbonate for Covestro, the volume share of standard polycarbonates now in the segment Performance Materials versus the total polycarbonates, declined from 65% in 2010 to only 32% in 2020 and we're expecting 27 – sorry, we saw 27% in 2021, and we expect that share to further declining to 25% to 20%.
And that shows you very clearly that our exposure to that segment is decreasing by the day and our exposure to the high value segment is, let's say, increasing by the day. And that should give you also some comfort about how we are cushioning this. Nonetheless, Thomas has alluded to that what that overall could mean for all four product routes in terms of, let's say, pricing effect in 2022. It was a long answer. However, I think it's important to get the full picture so that you have a better flavor how to look at our guidance and also the year ahead.
Very thorough. Thank you very much.
The next question comes from Geoff Haire, who's calling from UBS. Please go ahead.
Oh, good afternoon and thank you for the presentation and the opportunity to ask some questions. I have two related to energy. So if I look at slide 20, if I'm reading that right, I think you're saying that there's a €500 million increase in the energy bill in 2020. But if I look on a mark-to-market basis that the graphs and information we can see, it would imply that this could be significantly higher than €500 million. So is there offsets with hedging or long-term energy pricing contracts that you have, wondering if you could discuss that? And then also connected with this, do you expect energy costs to continue to be high relative to where we were last year in 2023 or do you assume some normalization?
Well, Geoff, this is Thomas. Your last question certainly is the $100 million question. So let me start with the first one – exactly. The numbers in the light blue columns that you see is, yes, we had €0.6 billion energy costs in 2020, €1 billion last year. And we were expecting €1.5 billion for 2022 in our plans. If you mark that to market with yesterday's levels, you're right it would be slightly higher, roughly €1.7 billion. But, again, I would say in the overall context, we have shown that we were able to pass through energy cost rises quite successfully in 2021, and therefore, this daily mark-to-market, which really has quite an amplitude over the last number of days, would not lead us to change our guidance. But you're right, the €1.5 million would be €1.7 million as of yesterday.
What are we expecting for 2023, it's really more the volatility, which is a challenge and not the absolute level, because you've seen this specifically in our Solutions & Specialty segment, where we are somewhat slow to adjust contracts to price changes, simply because they are longer running. However, if it is a longer plateau on a high level, our view is that also the Solutions & Specialty segment should be able to pass this onto the customers. And therefore, as I said, we're not so much concerned with the absolute level, but more with the volatility in the energy prices.
Okay. I'll just ask a quick follow-up. Within your sort of multi-year contracts that you have for MDI or polycarbonate, do you have energy pass-through clauses on those?
Yeah. Essentially, we do not have longer-term contracts for MDI and TDI. So those are one-month rolling contracts, if you like. I mean, there might be a frame contract with the minimum and maximum quantities, but the prices are essentially adjusted on a monthly level, and therefore, there is no automatism. So there is not an automatic price adjustment clause, but there is a monthly renegotiation of the prices, which is the standard in the industry.
Okay. Thanks.
The next question comes from Thomas Swoboda, who's calling from Société Générale. Please go ahead.
Yes. Good afternoon, everybody. I have two questions left, please. Firstly, on CapEx, can you give us a sneak preview on the next couple of years in the light of the investment in sustainability and the MDI plant, wherever it would be built? So when do you see the peak? What is the peak CapEx roughly whatever you can say?
And the second question is on your emission targets, an important driver is the renewable energy. My question is how much of this renewable energy you have in your planning? You are going to acquire yourself, meaning, how much is under your control and how much do you rely that basically the governments will provide enough green energy, so you can reach your targets? Thank you.
Yeah, Thomas, this is Thomas. Let me take the first question on CapEx. And of course, I mean, the sneak preview is somewhat dependent on the decision that we take after the summer break, as Markus said. But let's assume just for a minute that we were to decide to build MDI irrespective of which region it is, then I think you should expect another step-up in 2023 of between €100 million and €200 million. And you should expect the peak to occur roughly in 2025, with up to €1.5 billion for work.
You also put this in context with our investment for carbon-neutrality. We said that we would spend €1 billion over the next 10 years. I think that just shows you the absolute CapEx number that we need to achieve. The target is not the big swing factor here; simply because we have not stranded assets. We can fully operate our assets as they are with drop-in solutions, so renewable input factors. We have to switch the energy to green energy supply. We have to switch them to green steam. But we don't have to invest big ticket items for completely new installations because, as I said, the ones that we have do work with drop-in solutions and are not stranded assets. And I think that just puts into context that the ticket for our carbon neutrality path is not the big swing factor in our CapEx planning
Yeah, and Thomas, if I may say so – it is Markus speaking. That plan has as Thomas alluded three big ticket items not in terms of costs but where we want to focus on in terms of levers, how to make our Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions climate-neutral by 2030. Part of it is for sure that we have expectations on how the overall electricity, let's say, production will look like in a specific country. However, we're not entirely or even, to a large extent, relying on that.
And proof of that is, for example, how we have so far managed that. We actually closed a big deal at that time, the largest ever made, let's say, private deal between two companies on renewable energy, which [technical difficulty] (00:55:59) where we expect about 10% of the electric demand of our production facilities by 2025 being, let's say, supported by a wind farm of Ørsted in the North Sea. We have actually done a similar deal with the company ENGIE for our production plant in Antwerp, covering already since last year, April 1, 45% of the electrical energy demand. And we have now actually sun-powered electricity that covers around 10% of the electrical demand of our [ph] charging sites (00:56:30).
So you see that regardless of what the state is doing and how the state grid energy mix looks like, we are also pursuing own options to buy our own electricity to make sure that we achieve that target. And we will for sure adopt this depending on how, let's say, the overall development will look like. So that flexibility is built in for sure. At one point in time, you have to jump and you have to make a decision. For example, the Ørsted contract was actually signed in 2019. It takes six years to build a wind park, and therefore, at one point in time, we have to say no matter what the state does, we secure our own energy.
But on the other hand, that is not different from what we are currently doing, let's say, with fossil-based energy also here, we have own supply agreements with individual companies. And also here we already had the chance to say how much green electricity we want to have and so on and so forth. So long story short, that is not carved in stone, and it is not relying, let's say, on individual governmental decisions, but rather a flexible approach that we have within the three major levers that we have described in the presentation.
Very clear. Thank you, both.
Thank you. The next question comes from Matthew Yates calling from Bank of America. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good afternoon. A couple of questions, please. Just to clarify on the mark-to-market calculation, are you assuming mid-to-high single-digit volume growth within that math? That's the first question.
The second question to Markus, maybe going back to slide 17, on your polycarbonate mix. Thanks for the detail there. When you've talked in this call about intensified competition, can I just check, is that specifically on these more standard products? Are you also seeing competition creep into the more sophisticated areas?
And if I could ask a third one around the buyback, just out of curiosity, the decision to do this over two years rather than one year, can you just explain the thought process there? And I guess, it's not really a question of approvals but more living within the financial framework. And if that was the case, then was there any debate about adopting a sort of more modular approach over a shorter time period that you could revisit and update over time depending how things evolve? Thank you.
Yeah. Let me maybe start with the first question on the mark-to-market, so yes, that essentially takes into account the current pricing level or current margin level, I should say as of January. And if you multiply this then out with our volume assumption for 2022, so the mid- to high-single-digit growth rate that we see. So that is essentially the product that gives you then the €3.3 billion. And as I said, 1 percentage point of growth essentially translates into €80 million of EBITDA as an effect.
I could also directly cover the share buyback question. So we always said that a share buyback, we would do this in a opportunistic and anti-cyclical way. So we do feel that the two-year horizon gives us the flexibility to do exactly this. There was not a big debate because secondly, we also see this as market standard, and therefore, we do feel that both from a company but more specifically from a shareholder perspective, this is the right approach to give us the time to really act flexibly, and as I said, opportunistically with respect to the share buyback.
Yeah. And on the third question, as you alluded to, more sophisticated or the non-sophisticated part, if I assume that you mean with non-sophisticated part, the standard polycarbonates, that is where the competition is really in full swing, that is where we also expect the market to really heavily compete. And that is exactly why we long term ago already have moved away and doing that with increasing speed over the next years from that particular segment.
Nonetheless, we are very competitive in this market to be absolutely clear. We have large assets, we use high economy of scales and we continuously and particularly now in a new structure focusing on cost-leading positions in all regions with all assets where we produce to make sure that we always get the best out of, let's say, our investments here and compete as tough as possible and as dedicated as possible in that.
Do we see similar trends in the sophisticated grades? Honestly speaking, no. Why? We have some local competitors here and there who try to do the same trick that we do. But we have to consider that this is a more a technology platform approach for the sophisticated grades of polycarbonate. What do I mean with that? You have to understand how all the technologies work together, you have to have the ability to invest, you have to have the ability to have critical mass also to have this research and technology platform really having leading-edge technologies. And the newest trend here is, for example, the digitalization, simulation kicks in, with all the new calculation capacity, supercomputing, high-performance computing, even quantum computing. And by that, you could even further accelerate, let's say, your development speed towards customers with regard to that technology platform.
That makes it more and more difficult for smaller local competitors to really step in. And that means you need to have global reach, global scale and access to those technology platform levers. Otherwise, you will not be able to really compete in that market. And therefore, that is a market for the big ones, that is a market for the fast ones, and that is a market for the innovative ones. Therefore, we feel [indiscernible] (01:02:40) position in the segment no matter how competition looks like.
Okay. Thank you for taking the time.
Thank you. The next question comes from Georgina Fraser, who is calling from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Thank you and good afternoon, Markus and Thomas. Thanks for taking my questions. I have two. The first one is – just looking a bit further up the supply chain in Russia, I understand it's quite difficult to predict how demand might be impacted. But are there any key raw materials in either your own supply chains or competing chemical product supply chains that you think will be affected?
And then, my second question is, do the recent geopolitical tensions raise the importance of delivering your circularity targets? And how would you characterize the opportunities or benefits? And for a chemical company, that is switching to more diversified feedstocks?
Yeah, Georgina, thanks for the questions. While the Russian supply chain – petrochemicals are, let's say, limited in that sense, if you look at the [indiscernible] (01:03:56) prices, for example, in Europe, they just settled only slightly up. And if you look into specific raw materials that we have versus competing products, we have done so far only our own analysis and we do not see currently any short, not even in all the cases, any mid-term, let's say, physical supply risks of any of the raw materials that we need for our production.
And on the long term, we anyhow and we have stated that also in a different context, in earlier conference calls, anyhow, to – or however due to different reasons – regions – reasons, that we want to broaden our supply base to make sure that we also have here more competition with regard to our supplier base. So, long story short, we currently do not see any large effects on our own supply chains, but currently I have to say we are not yet aware of any, let's say, supply chain disruptions of immediately competing products or drop in products for our solutions. So, that analysis has not yet been performed.
On the second bit – second question, we do see a clear demand in the markets for products that are having a higher share of circular carbon, let's say, in our context. The challenge we are currently facing is that we want to build the raw material markets for circular carbon, and that is a key challenge because we would have more demand from our customer's side for those products. We are able to create value and extract value from those products, and we get by the day more and more requests from customers and consumers, whether they can have the respective products. And that's why we have very boldly moved forward on, let's say, renewable MDI, on renewable TDI, on renewable polycarbonate exactly to address those markets. The key challenges we have to grow and to develop the respective markets from a supplier side.
Just to give you a few numbers, last year, we roughly bought 20,000 tons of renewable certified respective raw materials that go into our large products. This year, we aim to roughly 70,000 tons to 100,000 tons. That would mean Sector 3 to 5. However, that still at the upper end would only represent 2.5% of the total amount of petrochemical feedstock that we're currently buying. So, long story short, we see great opportunities. We also believe in a first mover advantage to also extract value, but we also see the challenges to now rapidly scale up and we are far, I have to say far, let's say from the situation where this is a major share of our portfolio.
However, I see mid of the century that the [ph] overall (01:06:50) industry will be able to supply maybe millions of tons of renewable carbon feedstock, not necessarily for our own products, but in terms of the overall industry supply and I think also that for mid of the century, those investments will fully kick in, so that we make major progress here in that regard. But I truly believe there is a first-mover advantage and that is exactly what we currently try to establish and we'll try to also lock in business with our customers.
That's great. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Chris Counihan, who's calling from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Thanks, guys. You've mentioned, the mid to high single digit volume growth assumptions for 2022, but I was just trying to tie it back to your 10-year growth in greenhouse gas emissions on slide 6, in which the orange bar implies average of historic growth closer to 1.5% per annum before the described abatement measures. And I note at the top end of your guidance as well, you've already potentially used or admitted at least half of that in 2022.
So, are there already some net offsets in this orange bar over the coming years or can you help me reconcile that to growth expectations on the volume side longer term?
Chris, again, the sound quality was a little bit poor, so I hope that I can answer your question correctly. If I understand correctly, your question is, how to reconcile the mid to high single digit core volume growth assumptions, especially if you compare this to the historic development. And I would say, what you have to keep in mind is, in 2022, first point, 2021 was a poor year in terms of operational uptime that we delivered for various reasons, some of them external, like the winter storm, some of them simply internal, we had a major standstill in our newly built MDI facility in Brunsbüttel. We had standstill in our facilities in Leverkusen and also in Dormagen. So, it was not a great year and we were actually operationally below the numbers in terms of call volumes of 2019 still.
So, we have – and therefore the big effect that we're expecting for 2022 and it's a Covestro-specific effect, is that those things will not reoccur, plus of course we have RFM with us for another quarter, which was not the case in 2021. And if you take those things together, together with some call volume growth that should come from GDP growth and a catch-up in automotive, and you've seen the – the double digit number that we are projecting, that brings us then to the mix number of a mid to high single digit number. So, there is quite a bit of catch-up effect in there and there is of course some support from RFM in there.
So, sorry, Thomas, I was more referring to slide 6 and mid-single digits for 2022, but then slide 6 in greenhouse gas emission growth of – I think it's one million metric tons over the next decade, and asking if there is already abatement measures within that [indiscernible] (01:10:26) on slide 6, because that would be implying average Covestro growth of 1.5% per annum, when historically core volume growth had been ahead of that.
Now, I get it. So, the – the – of course, the – the new volumes that we're growing are growing with lower CO2 emissions than the historic numbers because everything that we invest into growth will be a newer technology, Markus was mentioning things like abatement for analytics. We have the high temperature [indiscernible] (01:11:00), et cetera, et cetera. So, all the new technologies that we're building have a lower CO2 footprint, plus, of course, the majority of growth, as we have also shown in one of our early Investor Relations presentation, takes place in the Solutions & Specialty segment, which by nature has lower CO2 footprint and the upstream business.
And that, I think, is the – for you the explanation why it's not a one-to-one relationship. Sorry, if I misunderstood your question the first time.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question comes from Markus Mayer, who's calling from Baader Bank. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, gentlemen. Three questions from my side as well. The first one is on the RFM synergies. Have been there any specific reasons for the faster-than-expected synergies or are these synergies – or the faster synergies coming from somewhere specific, or was it just that you were conservative from the tied in all our amount of the synergy and also on the cost? That would be my first question.
And directly to that, Markus, I mean, first of all, all the operational synergies came in exactly as expected. Where we were faster than expected is the cancellation of the service agreements that we still have with DCM for transitionary period and we were able to take over those services in terms of IT, accounting, controlling and some other administrative functions earlier than what we had put in our plans and that led to the overachievement. However, that is not to say, to be very clear, that the more operational things in terms of head count consolidation and also sales synergies through the joint formation of laboratories and research programs is not on track. It's also on track, but the overachievement specifically in 2021 came through the early cancellation of transitionary service agreements, mainly with DSM.
Okay, thank you. And second question would be on the potential fall-away of the EEG levy and Germany, which could be already the case in 2022. What kind of effects do you expect for Covestro?
Yeah, it's currently really, I would say, a little bit challenging to say because the currently intended stop of the EEG and also the respective potential impact would mean that we would only see about one year later a visible impact. And if that would be cancelled, we would at least [indiscernible] (01:13:48) the positive impact about, let's say, 1.2 million tons of less accounted, if you want to say so, carbon dioxide equivalent emissions, simply due to the fact that we're currently falling under this and therefore we get the, if I may, so, dirty part of the German energy mix fully into our books.
Once that EEG exemption is falling away, we would also get the German complete energy mix in our books, and that would lead to, as I said, 1. 2 million tons positive development in terms of lowering our carbon dioxide emission footprint. Does that answer your question?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And my third question would be then on this, 230,000 tons of polycarbonate compounding capacities until 2025. Can you quantify how much CapEx would be needed for these kind of capacities? And also how fast is the capacity additions and also in what kind of regions.
Yeah, I think two things are very important. Number one is and same like carbon dioxide intensity, the capital intensity for those businesses is happily and, let's say, that's good that that is actually much lower than the intensity for the upstream businesses in terms of capital. So, normally, we would expect for 230KT, a CapEx in the low triple digit million number. And also the complexity to really install it is much lower than building, for example, a fully-fledged polycarbonate plant in that order of magnitude.
So, from that perspective, I would expect that those CapEx costs are much lower than you would expect for an upstream polycarbonate. I would also expect that we could swiftly execute and we will definitely also execute this where the key markets are and the key markets are for that growth to the largest extent in relative as well as absolute terms of growth in Asia-Pacific. However, I do not want to indicate something that we only invest in Asia Pacific or give you a share because it is way too early to talk about specific investments. But that is just a general order of magnitude to, to give you some indication. Asia Pacific is the market to be. We also see a good growth for those high value products in the United States, as well as in Europe.
And regarding the ramp-up pace, so basically this 230,000 tons, should we expect in a linear trend for a ramp up?
Yeah, difficult to say, because we really look into individual markets and there we go for local permits, we need to see where is the exact place where we do that, and we also did just finish one line in 2021 and the ramp-up currently is happening. That means specifying with customers, then fully loading the plants with all the flexibility that those plants have and so on and so forth. So, I would not expect a linear ramp up, but it's more like bits and pieces of smaller and larger lines, as we call it, for extrusion. I mean, that's the name of the technology how you do it. That compounding is basically extrusion process.
And therefore there might be a year 5,000 tons, then there might be 20,000 tons and there might be another 6,000 tons. So it's really a big network of smaller plants here and there at sites that are close to customers within an already existing site. And that is exactly why I cannot say it will be a linear topic. But once again, as a reminder, that is not additional capacity in terms of polycarbonate capacity. It's just that we take more of our own production of standard polycarbonate and route it through the additional capacity of highly specialized polycarbonate.
So, no additional overall capacity, we are just moving, let's say, from highly cyclical standard polycarbonates now to the value adding products in our portfolio to achieve, let's say, 80% of our portfolio by 2025 to be in that, let's say, space.
Okay. Thank you for this clarification and the answers.
Mr. Köhler, there are no further questions at this time. Please continue with any points you wish to raise.
Thank you all for your interesting question and for your interest in Covestro. I think we are already slightly overdue on time, so, happy to close it right now. If you have any additional questions, just come back to the IR team. Thanks. Bye.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the Covestro earnings call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.